A multi-commodity network flow-based formulation for the multi-period cell formation problem

作者：Venkatadri Uday^*; Elaskari Salah M; Kurdi Raed

来源：International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2017, 91(1-4): 175-187.

DOI：10.1007/s00170-016-9673-2

• Cell formation
• Mixed integer linear programming
• Cellular manufacturing
• Group technology
• Design of production systems
• Multi-commodity network flow
• Alternate process routings
• Multi-period cell formation problem

In this paper, we present a new multi-commodity network flow-based formulation for the multi-period cell formation problem. The objective of the model is to minimize the total costs of acquisition, disposal, and relocation of machines, manufacturing, and inter-cell/intra-cell material handling. The main contribution of this paper comes from the fact that we structure the underlying problem as a multi-period multi-commodity network flow problem with general integer variables for machine acquisition, disposal, and relocation connecting one period to the next. This formulation is more efficient than the formulations we have encountered in the literature. Another contribution of this paper is that the flow variables representing the flow of parts through the system is path based; as a result, this approach makes it very easy to model alternate process routings. This paper illustrates the formulation by the use of two examples taken from the literature and presents computational results for other representative problems.

• 出版日期2017-7